Beasts of Burden: My Three Sisters in Zambia

The field needed to be plowed.
But the oxen were ill,
had no strength to pull their burden.

This morning, three women in Zambia
are harnessed to a plow.
Makeshift human horses.

These women, his three wives,
burrow through the clay of the field,
taking the soil between their toes

on this day when the sun is fierce
with its lashing of heat
offering no respite.

Their husband, seated high above the furrows,
cracks his whip
shouting faster, faster, faster.

He anticipates the fertile harvest
hard labor
will eventually produce.

Someone in the village
dared to speak of this human plow
to the authorities.

All charges were dropped
against this husband
who strapped his three wives to the plow

because the oxen were ill
and the field needed to be,
had to be plowed.